


Breathe Today

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Magic, Magical Artifacts, Red Room, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-06-10 10:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6953515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You try your hardest to perfect your explanations<br/>You lie until they've run out of questions<br/>You can only move as fast as those in front of you<br/>And if you assume just like them, what good will it do?<br/>So find out for yourself, so your ignorance will stop bleeding through</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Back To The Past

**Author's Note:**

> The original idea for this started over a year ago, when Jessy and I heard about 1872 but Natasha wasn't mentioned at all. Of course, she has since made her appearance, and reblogged panels I've seen are fantastic. This story has nothing to do with the 1872 series at all, and would be better considered a MCU AU or a little side story that could slot into canon, starting with the Red Room days. I borrowed heavily from historical events as much as I could dig up, but let's just assume that none of this actually happened. ;) 
> 
> Title and summary from Flyleaf's "Breathe Today."

Anya was three years older than Natalia, and had been sent on some of the most difficult missions the Red Room had to offer. She managed to infiltrate a mage circle in Tibet in order to search for an item that should alter the course of history. It wasn't known what the artifact looked like or how it would do such a thing, but the Red Room wanted it.

That was when Anya disappeared.

Someone in the organization traced her steps, and Madame Bolishinko was visibly upset by whatever she was told. She took it out on the girls; impossible dance moves, horrid testing condition, time in sensory deprivation changes for minor infractions. It was nearly impossible to escape her wrath, though all the girls tried. Natalia dodged her for days, but finally tripped up when she was too absorbed in her reading in the library. Computer science and theory was fascinating, but Madame Bolishinko wanted someone to pick on. Natalia refused to show her dismay or fear, merely keeping her mouth shut and head bowed. She knew that this had nothing to do with her; Madame Bolishinko usually encouraged library time rather than useless gossiping in the mess hall or barracks.

Resentment burned in Natalia's heart as she was beaten, and it slowly turned into rage. She _would_ get revenge.

A little over a week after, Natalia was summoned into the office of an officer she had never seen before. As soon as she arrived, Madame Bolishinko was dismissed with a stern command. Her hair was scraped back tightly from her face, her mouth twisted into a sour expression. She stared at Natalia, not proud of her achievements any longer. Natalia ignored her dour look and kept her focus on the man behind the massive desk in the office.

Once Madame Bolishinko shut the door, the man eyed her closely. "You have been here for many years, cadet."

"Thirteen years, Comrade," Natalia replied promptly. "I turned eighteen three months ago."

"Loyal to the Red Room."

"This is my family." A lie. A very necessary life, but he didn't seem as convinced by it as Madame Bolishinko usually was.

The man nodded. "Yet you've killed some girls."

"The weak must be culled, the broken removed. Madame B always instructed us in such things. A weak family will not survive."

He smiled, and it was hardly a friendly one. "And a girl disappointed in her family will do silly things. Like trying to escape us."

Was that what Anya did? No wonder they were so angry.

Natalia remained still as he tried to gauge her response. She betrayed none of her own thoughts about it, or the flare of hope for her own escape rising. She stayed still, making eye contact even though it had been discouraged.

"No feelings on that?" the man challenged her.

"There's no such thing as escaping the Red Room. That's just silly," Natalia said evenly. "We will always come home."

Now he smiled, and it was quite sinister. "Indeed, little one."

"Is there a mission for me?" Natalia asked when he didn't elaborate.

"Yes, there is. Are you aware of Anastasia Ivanovna Banta?" he asked.

"A student older than myself, I believe," Natalia replied.

"Yes. She hasn't returned to us yet." His smile was eerie, clearly trying to be trustworthy but failing miserably. "I want you to find her, bring her back home."

"What if she hadn't yet completed her mission?"

He looked at her with a stony expression. "She had ample time to complete it, cadet. It is impossible to believe that she hadn't."

Natalia frowned. "I don't understand."

The stony expression didn't change. "Find her. Bring her home."

She nodded. "Of course, sir."

A nameless handler brought her to Tibet, to the last place Anya had been. The trail was months old and fairly difficult to find, but Anya had been fairly memorable in one of the small villages nearby. She had asked a young man, little more than an overgrown boy, to serve as a guide into the foothills and caves of the Himalayas. "She had markings on a map," the boy told her in broken English. "I don't know what for."

"It doesn't matter what for," Natalia assured him. "I worry about my sister. She hasn't returned home, and I want to be sure she isn't hurt."

He looked at her in sympathy, this ragged boy with dark hair, dark eyes and sunburned skin. "I understand, miss. I take you where I bring sister. Not go further, I care my grandmother," he told her. "I not know where sister go from path I take."

Natalia offered him a grateful smile. "Thank you so much." She pressed a wad of money into his hands. "To help you and your grandmother," she murmured. Her cover identity would care about such things, and it was a pittance the Red Room could afford.

The boy didn't even pretend to reject the money. He pocketed it and spoke to his grandmother in their regional dialect. The old woman nodded and patted his hand gently, and offered a smile of encouragement in Natalia's direction. They gave Natalia warmer clothes, some rations and water. The boy led her to the spot he had left Anya, and wished her luck.

She explored the wilderness for days, carefully rationing the food she had been given, not knowing how long it would take her to find Anya. The handler that had brought her to Tibet was not her usual one, and likely was continuing to track her. She couldn't assume that she was alone in the wild, that her trail was as thoroughly erased as she thought it was. There were whispers among the girls that tracking devices had been planted, that even if she was as good as she thought she was, he was tracking her signal. They couldn't be sure that Anya wouldn't kill her, after all. And if she found Anya, and was killed in the process, at least they would know where exactly the girl had gone to ground.

Clever. Natalia would have appreciated being asked. Or at least told it was being done. The administrators always stressed that the mission was more important than the individual, that she could never rely on them for extraction. Pain was often a necessary consequence of actions needed to be used in the field, and she would just have to deal with it when it happened. Her own safety wasn't more important than the mission.

Still, she took stock of herself continually, and tried to feel beneath her skin for any potential tracking devices or scars. She was flexible enough she could feel the spot between her shoulder blades that most people couldn't, and still felt nothing beneath her skin. It was even further down into her flesh, or possibly buried elsewhere. Her tongue couldn't detect differences in her teeth, if there were any false ones full of poison or tracking devices. As soon as she got to a river deep enough she could bathe in, she checked herself more thoroughly, but couldn't feel anything in her vagina or rectum.

A lesser cadet of the Red Room would have assumed she wasn't tagged. Natalia was not a lesser cadet, and could only assume that it was implanted deeper into her flesh, a soft signal that Red Room satellites could pick up. They had technology far beyond that of ordinary citizens, after all, so it wasn't without reason to assume she was still being monitored in some way.

No sign of Anya. She was sure her handler traipsing behind her in the wilderness was disgruntled by the failure. The nameless administrator that had given her this mission was no doubt upset with her lack of progress. But other than the ghostly handler and tagging she was sure was there, Natalia felt free. There was open air and no pressing presence of eyes or ears. All she had was blessed silence in the evenings, stars overhead and the chill wind as she moved through the mountains. She scavenged as much as she could, went with as little as possible to refuel her body in order to keep it functioning. The three days' rations stretched out to a little over a week, but there was nothing Natalia could find of Anya.

It was as if the girl had simply disappeared.

The second day without food or water, Natalia woke suddenly overnight. She couldn't have said what woke her, just that preternatural sense honed by the constant threat of attack within the Red Room. It wouldn't be the handler; that nameless man was likely given orders to observe only, not interfere. He would clean up any messes left in her wake, which would lead to reprimands for not doing her job well enough.

_Find her. Bring her home._

The artifact was likely priceless, powerful, and worth the expense of so many assets being sent into the field and possibly lost.

She didn't hear any sounds. That in and of itself was ominous, because she should have heard insects or vermin rustling in the underbrush. There were no weapons other than her own teeth and hands, so she hoped it wasn't an animal with tough hide. It probably wasn't, though, since there shouldn't have been any threats like that in this area.

When Natalia tried to turn over, she found she couldn't move. Fear rose, a sharp spike of cold down her spine. She could blink, she could wriggle her nose, she could part her lips. Her body from the chin and down was frozen into place, though she couldn't feel or see anything different that could have held her down.

A man with black hair, graying at the temples, crunched through the underbrush. He wore black trousers and a white shirt, a large golden circular medallion hanging from a thick chain of squared links. He actually had a red cloak as well, with a high collar turned up and covering the entirety of his neck. His black boots crunched on the dead leaves, and he approached Natalia lying down on the ground, mostly hidden by foliage.

"I'm sorry I had to wait so long," he began, his voice deeper than Natalia would have expected for his frame. "The tail following you was very persistent, and I needed to create a spell that would be able to find the tracker embedded in your arm without blocking its signal."

"Who are you?" she asked, eyes narrowing slightly.

The man squatted down beside her. "I am Dr. Stephen Strange. I have been studying magic in these parts for quite some time. I assume you're one of Anastasia's associates."

"I am to bring her home."

"Home implies that it's a place she wants to go."

"It's where she belongs."

"Shouldn't all souls fly free?" he replied, looking at her closely.

Natalia refused to let something as feeble as hope come to her eyes. "We serve a purpose, as does she. I am to bring her home."

"Interesting," he murmured. "And if I found a way to set you free?"

She would leap at it without looking back. Well, maybe she would, if only to fire a rocket launcher at them, burning all of the administrators inside. And maybe if certain other girls were trapped inside, she certainly wouldn't have cried about it.

"You don't believe me," Dr. Strange observed. "But what do you think happened to Anastasia?"

"She didn't complete her mission."

"On the contrary," he corrected her with a shake of his head. "Her mission was very much completed. But then she got exactly what she wanted – a way out."

"There is no escape."

"She found it."

Natalia didn't want to believe him, but she couldn't sense any artifice in his words. "Why are you here?" she asked, voice toneless.

"You're looking for a gem that is no longer here. Anastasia found it, and she used it to change her own history." He looked off into the distance for a moment. "Then she took it with her."

"So there's nothing to find, you're saying," she replied, mind working furiously. She had to fully assess the situation. Of course this had to be a trick of some kind. Anya was clever to involve outsiders, but she was clever as well, and she would figure out how the trick was done.

"I promised her I would give others the choice I gave her."

"Which is?"

"You can go where you belong, or where you will likely make a difference. Where would you rather be?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I will go where Anya is."

Dr. Strange clucked his tongue. "It doesn't work that way. You choose where you belong or where you will make a difference."

Anya belonged at the Red Room but wasn't there. "Where I will make a difference, then."

His smile was warm, likely genuine. It was a nice answer, after all. "I ask a favor of you in return, little one."

She didn't bristle at the familiar tone; she hadn't given him her name, after all. "What favor?"

"Your friend has the gem. There's no way to safely destroy an object of that magnitude, and I certainly wouldn't even try. But it needs to be destroyed. I need you to find a way to do that, however you can."

"You just said it wasn't safe."

"Not for a magician, no. But for someone without magic? You can find a way to do it, and there won't be any risk of spell damage."

Or there would be _more_ risk of it, and she was an acceptable loss.

As if sensing her reluctance, he smiled. "You see, the risk for destroying this isn't to the one doing the destroying, exactly. It's the repercussions that would be felt throughout the magical community. I'm not at a stage in my training where I could succeed an assault by the ones that would be angry with such a move. But if you did it, you certainly weren't trying to capture its energies and steal them for your own. They would assume you had no idea what you possessed, and it was simply an unfortunate accident."

Natalia remained silent; most people were uncomfortable with it, and rushed to fill the empty places with sound. She didn't have the same discomfort. Silence allowed her to hear heartbeats and movement far away, to assess distance, to judge how far away enemies were and judge how much time she had to get under cover or return fire.

"You see, little one," Dr. Strange said after a moment, watching her very closely, "you don't have to return to where you came from. There are ways to escape it entirely, if that's what you want. It's what your friend Anastasia did."

No wonder Madame Bolishinko and the administrators were so angry. No one could ever escape the Red Room. They had to come back, complete their missions, had to do as they were told. If any one of the girls escaped or was lost to the Red Room, they had to be returned. None would be allowed to live on their own, outside the collective. Their bodies were not their own, their lives belonged to the Red Room. All the girls knew that.

Yet Anya still escaped.

"Where did she go?" Natalia asked finally.

Dr. Strange smiled broadly. "Not where," he said, sounding proud of himself. _"When."_

Well, now. No wonder the Red Room was so anxious to get her back. It would be as if she simply never existed at all.

Natalia smiled and licked her lips. "What do I have to do?"

***

The ritual that Dr. Strange did was rather anticlimactic. Perhaps magic usually was, Natalia had no idea. She couldn't see anything, just the odd configuration of his fingers and the look of intense concentration. The nonsense syllables were a singsong chant, one that could lull her to sleep if she was a lesser agent of the Red Room. Wind seemed to kick up around them in a rough circle, and she lofted an eyebrow at Dr. Strange that he didn't even seem to notice.

Pain seared through the deltoid muscle of her left arm. She didn't even yelp, just turned and looked at her arm with a betrayed expression. But working its way through her flesh was a small black transmitter, just as she had been afraid would be present. The black plastic seemed to glow, and Dr. Strange paused in his chanting to smile at Natalia encouragingly.

It was driven deep into the ground at Natalia's feet, and she only blinked in surprise, too stunned to even move, let alone try to hide a microexpression. She hadn't been expecting the move, hadn't known what Dr. Strange was planning.

Air rippled around her, and she felt a dry heat buffet her face. It smelled like dust and sand, like a plain with little water and only scrub brush. The air smelled nothing like the Himalayas, and she let her gaze fall on Dr. Strange without saying a word to alter his concentration.

Pressure settled in around her temples, as if it was a tension headache, or a head restraint squeezing tightly, holding her in place. As soon as she took in a deep breath, it felt like a thousand tiny needles piercing the inside of her skull, deep into her brain. She nearly choked, her eyes widening a fraction, and then Dr. Strange let his hands fall.

"Remember," he said quietly, his voice somehow still resonating through the stillness. "Anastasia took the stone rather than destroying it as she was supposed to. I need you to destroy it. If you can't do that wherever you are, bring it back here if you must." He bent toward her and pressed a hand against her shoulder, his thumb digging into the tissue beneath her collarbone. It burned, an agonizing pain that would have had her screaming if she hadn't been a Red Room graduate. All she did was gasp, though it felt as though the pain bored its way through her body like a large caliber bullet. "Just in case, this will lead you back in time to our present."

Natalia swayed and nearly fell when he let go of her and took a step back. "Dr. Strange," she tried to say, though her tongue felt thick and useless in her mouth.

"You can understand any of the native languages, and automatically speak it in return. That should help you navigate through the land in search of Anastasia. Your clothes will change automatically once you arrive, and they will be something appropriate to the time. I wish you luck," he told her kindly, lifting a hand in farewell. "It's a new land, a new world. I think you can do very well there, if you choose."

Before she could ask what he meant by that, the shimmering and rippling desert air seemed to contract in around her, pressing in tightly and painfully. It felt like breathing in dust and heat, like her body was being pushed into a smaller space, and she couldn't even keep her eyes open any longer. For an agonizing moment, she thought every bone in her body was being broken apart, or maybe ground into dust. Was this how the Red Room was getting rid of the agents they no longer had use for? An elaborate story and then a painful death?

She could hear water, and horses somewhere in the distance neighing. Her clothes felt different on her body, less of the thicker layers for the Himalayas and more of a corset and petticoats, torn gloves on her hands. Her hair was pinned up, a few loose curls dangling around her face. Air buffeted her, and then she crashed hard into the ground. It was packed dirt, and she could smell the crisp desert air that she had scented before.

Opening her eyes carefully, she squinted against the bright light that threatened to blind her after the darkness she had been in.

The sky was blue, so very blue, the sun overhead and beating down mercilessly. Her lips were cracked and chapped, and she desperately needed water. Around her were the scattered remains of a stagecoach and luggage, most of the contents ruined. There were clouds of dust in the distance, and she pushed herself up with some difficulty. When her vision swam, she took stock of her physical self, cataloging the aches, scrapes and patches of dried blood. She was otherwise unharmed, and could even feel a pair of stiletto blades strapped to her thighs beneath the layered petticoats of the dress. Patting the overskirt, she saw the artfully concealed pockets and slits for her to reach them quickly. Her hair seemed to be pinned in place with sticks sharp enough to do considerable damage, and pointed, heeled boots also held concealed blades worked into the decorations and lining.

Natalia looked around at the shape of the ruined stagecoach and trunks, the empty landscape all around her. She would guess that Dr. Strange had sent her to the American West, given how it all looked similar to movies she had seen in her cultural classes. She seemed very much the 1800's version of a Red Room agent, and she brought a hand up to shield her eyes as she looked at the dust cloud. It was growing larger, a collection of men on horseback approaching her.

Her own name would never do in a place like this. It had to be similar enough that Anya could recognize her for who she was, but Americanized so that they would think she was an ordinary woman of the time, robbed and left for dead at the side of the road. Clever cover for Dr. Strange to think of, if he had. Perhaps she had simply taken the place of a woman from the day that had been left in such a state. She certainly didn't know how magic worked.

There were three men on horseback that approached, and they seemed to be fairly official looking. "The Sheriff will need to know about this," one of them grumbled, and Natalia quickly identified him as the shifty-looking one in the back with his brimmed hat pulled low over his face to block out the sun.

The one in front eyed her and the tacky blood on her temples. He slid off the horse and squatted down to be at eye level. "Miss?"

"Ah, yes," she mumbled, bringing a hand up to one of her bloody temples. "I'm sorry, I don't remember what happened." She thought her speech patterns mimicked his fairly closely, a flat kind of accent with rolling vowels and fewer staccato consonants.

Looking sympathetic, he nodded. "Fairly sure it's the same gang the Sheriff was after," the man told her. "They've been attacking coaches and looking valuables. You're lucky you're still alive, Miss. There's even been trade with Injuns wanting white women for wives."

She frowned at him. "That makes no sense."

"'Course not, but the squaws probably don't look as nice as our women do," another of the three men guffawed. He didn't even look sorry when the squatting man turned to glare at him.

"This isn't talk for a genteel miss," the man said, helping Natalia to her feet. "What's your name and where were you headed?"

"Natasha Roman," she said, giving him a grimace of a smile. "And I don't know where I am right now, to be honest."

"Outside of St. Louis," the man informed her.

The words had no meaning for her, and he sighed. "Perhaps we need to get you looked after by the doctor. That head wound looks terrible, and many a man died after getting wounds like that, even if they looked right as rain for a spell."

Because of the type of hemorrhage it would have been, though Natalia couldn't tell him such things. It was likely unseemly for women to have medical knowledge in this time period, though she didn't know much about the American West. She'd never needed to, other than identifying what a Western film was. Even that was a stretch, and only because a prior mark had been rather enamored of John Wayne movies.

"Is John Wayne in St. Louis?" she asked, making sure she had her most innocent expression on her face.

"I don't rightly know, Miss Roman," the man said. "But we can ask Sheriff Taylor if he knows of the man or how to find him."

"You know the Sheriff?" Natalia – _Natasha_ now – asked, pretending to stumble into the man's arms. She couldn't feel any badge indicating that he was part of the sheriff's office, and he wasn't even carrying a gun. Coupled with the shifty looking man in the back, she suspected that these three men were scavengers, hoping to find something from the stagecoach to cannibalize and maybe sell for a profit. She would have done the same in their position.

"The right honorable Philip C. Taylor," the shifty looking man said, sarcasm heavy in his tone, "does whatever he damn well pleases. People know not to cross him."

"Don't scare the lady," the nicer man warned him. The third one remained silent.

"The good sheriff'll do it on his own," the shifty man replied with a shrug. "Might as well be a mite charitable and let 'er know he ain't no savior."

"Is there some charitable location in the city?" Natasha asked hopefully. "They could perhaps help give me aid while I find family."

"Nuns of the Sacred Heart, then," the silent man said after a moment. "Best option."

Natasha pasted a smile of thanks on her face and let them bring her into St. Louis. She was going to have to think fast and act faster once she got there.

The best part of it all, however, was that the Red Room clearly didn't exist.

***  
***


	2. Getting Acquainted

St. Louis was a fairly organized city, with most of the modern conveniences of the age. Natasha didn't need to pretend ignorance of it as they traveled. The three rescuers were George Haviland, Henry Cutter and Jared Allen, ranch hands that had seen a dust cloud at the edge of the property while taking steer out to the farthest pasture of their boss' property. They returned to check out the source of the cloud once the steer were all accounted for, which was why they had missed the brigands that had attacked her stagecoach and likely killed whoever else was with her. Henry was the leering man in the back, and wondered aloud why she had been left behind. Jared, the silent man of the three, simply stared at Henry. "Would you want to be found carrying a dead woman's body if town folk were coming?"

Apparently, Dr. Strange's spell really did find a good way to insert her into the current timeline.

The men didn't find it strange that she didn't know it was the spring of 1872, just like they hadn't thought it was too strange that she hadn't known she was outside of St. Louis. Knocks to the head in this period often killed people or left them "odd," with "fits" and "brain swellings" that the doctors of the time couldn't fix. A little memory loss was easily explained away.

George seemed to think of himself as her protector, and told her about downtown. The city boasted four hotels: the Southern at Fourth and Walnut Streets, the Planter's House at Fourth and Chestnut, the Everett House on Fourth near Locust, and the Lindell at Sixth and Washington. Each had their own style, and he often preferred to eat at the Everett if he had money and time to spare. "They don't look down on hands coming in for a spell," he explained, and Natasha nodded sagely. Class differences always existed, after all.

Office buildings were concentrated near the courthouse, the focal point of the city's business and political life. Scandals usually surrounded Sheriff Taylor, especially if he tried to collect taxes or sell seized property, which he legally wasn't allowed to do. People shopped at the upper end of Fourth Street, near Washington Avenue, and Scruggs and the Barr Drygoods Company were the most frequently visited. The banking houses were on Olive and Locust Streets, also near Fourth. Vandeventer Place was the most fashionable address, with large homes that dwarfed the rest of the residential part of downtown. The Mississippi could only be crossed by boat, though there were plans for Eads Bridge to cross it.

The men were clearly proud of their city, and Natasha nodded and smiled in all the right places, filing away the information for later. They would only serve as her protectors for so long, after all. She had to strike out on her own and try to track down Anya. It was going to be difficult, given that she didn't know what name or appearance the other Widow was going to take on, but Strange had been adamant that he was sending her to the correct place and time. Entering a large city was easy, and staying hidden was child's play. Natasha was going to have to think like Anya and be clever.

Good thing that was part and parcel of who she was.

The nuns of the Sacred Heart were in the process of opening a college dedicated for the young women and underprivileged of the city. There was also construction on City Hall, so there were many laborers, construction workers, and day laborers moving in and out of the city. Anya would want to steer clear of them. She would be seen as a light skirt, and Natasha knew that Anya had hated the honeypot and seduction missions in the Red Room.

Sister Mary Margaret welcomed Natasha and gave her a place to stay and rest. "George is a good man, he comes to church and volunteers when he can. Such a good man," she murmured. "He mentioned you were looking for someone?"

"My cousin," Natasha said smoothly. "Anya was trying to escape her stepfather. Very mean and abusive, hit her all the time," she said, letting her voice drop into a conspiratorial whisper. "Her mother, my auntie, had consumption, couldn't protect her."

Clucking her tongue in sympathy, Sister Mary Margaret nodded in understanding. "All too commonly seen, even around here."

"My own parents couldn't help, though they tried when they could. My aunt just died, and her stepfather took everything. He's left, and I don't know where he is."

"Do you think he's trying to find your cousin?"

"I don't know," Natasha lied. "But I want her to know, just in case. I don't know what name she would have used when she arrived here, though."

"Poor dear," the sister murmured. "We had a lot of people to help after last year's tornado." At Natasha's blank look, she explained how it had touched down in the downtown area on the afternoon of March 8, 1971 and done considerable damage. Before it left the city, thirty homes had been utterly destroyed, another thirty were damaged, six railroad depots were damaged, and nine people had been killed. Another sixty were injured.

"It was such a devastating time, just as the city was recovering from the cholera epidemic," the sister clucked, shaking her head. "No one had any idea that the storm was even coming. It just happened right out nowhere! So now you understand why there's so much building and repair work in the city."

Natasha nodded, taking it all in. "My poor cousin. She would've been arriving here right around then, too. She must've been so frightened."

And it made perfect sense. Using some kind of magic artifact, when she had no idea how to use magic or what it could even do, probably upset the balance of reality. Of course it would wreak havoc on the city. Of course there would be chaos.

That would make it even easier for Anya to hide. No one would be motivated to see past the lies that she told to fit in, either.

She sat back and took stock of her thoughts. Dr. Strange had sent her back because her mission was to find Anya and bring her back to the Red Room. But he also fully expected her to live in the past as a way to escape them as Anya had done. He wouldn't be upset if she took this opportunity to never return.

How many other girls would suffer in her absence, though? How many would fall under Madame Bolishinko's temper? How many others would be sent into the Himalayan mountains to look for her and Anya?

More importantly, how much was that magical gem worth?

Red Room handlers would likely think that a few lives were acceptable losses. Natasha had no illusions about how dispensable the girls were. They were only as good as their skill set, and only the best had resources allocated to them. If not considered worthwhile enough, girls would get shunted aside and possibly even used as cannon fodder.

Sister Mary Margaret was so eager to be helpful that she was too easy to manipulate. Saying that she wanted to help the nuns as recompense for aiding her brought the requisite protests, but Natasha insisted on it. The Sister wasn't very good at recordkeeping, and Natasha immediately beamed and offered to handle the books for the sisters for a time. "It will keep me from being idle," she said with a pleasant smile. "And I will need to learn more about the city if this is going to be my new home."

Natasha really hadn't believed that she would find Anya right away in the records that the nuns kept; how often would they have actually written down the names of those they helped? After all, they never wrote down the name she gave them. Still, she pored over them, meticulously reorganizing them and rearranging them into an easily cross referenced system.

From there, Sister Mary Margaret introduced her to faculty at the school, who felt she would make an excellent instructor. "Rather like the girl last year, actually," the dean commented, stroking his beard. Perhaps he was trying to look like Sigmund Freud, thinking it made him appear worldly and intelligent. Natasha thought he was rather officious, but politely refrained from saying so.

"What girl last year?"

The dean was startled a bit by her question. Perhaps he had thought she was the type to remain silent and accept all his words as divine gospel. "Oh, our students and staff helped people after the wreckage from the tornado. One poor girl was so devastated, memory loss and lack of funds, and no home to go to." He shrugged. "One of the lawyers we've employed for getting the permits for our school had need of a governess. She was quite skilled at languages and numbers, from what I recall."

She refused to hope that it would be this easy. It could merely be a coincidence. "What was her name? Do you remember?"

"Annie something, I think," the dean said dismissively. "Perhaps she's in the roster, since she did also teach French here for a time."

One of the secretaries helped her, thinking nothing of finding the girl's name. "It's good to know respectable ladies in town," she said, nodding. "When you strike out on your own, it's so easy for unscrupulous men to take loathsome advantage. Young ladies have no idea of the risk, and then they're fallen, unable to recover their reputations."

Natasha thought the old woman was an overbearing spinster, likely jealous of the young women in her charge, but again kept her opinions to herself. She merely smiled and nodded in all the right places as employment records were pored through. The woman was slow, peering through her spectacles and still squinting.

"Have you had many instructors?" Natasha asked.

"Well, once girls are married, they are busy with families and no longer work outside of their homes," the woman sniffed, blinking at Natasha and patting her white hair, smoothing it back toward her bun. Not a hair was out of place, not a spot or wrinkle was on her black dress. For a moment, the motion reminded her of Madame Bolishinko, and she froze. "There are those that think it's a waste to educate the young ladies, because of that. But educated ladies become proper helpmeets for the men of the city, and raise respectable children. It's better for the city as a whole if they can read and do simple tasks. I've heard quite a few men think it's silly, that they'll instead read _novels,_ and their entire moral character would fall apart."

"Oh, no," Natasha said in mock horror. The secretary nodded, thinking her serious.

"Exactly. And the young ladies associated with our school absolutely cannot be loose in character, or it ruins it for the girls that are serious about their education."

"There are some rumors of the suffrage movement—"

"There is such a thing as taking education too far," the secretary sniffed, turning back to her papers and shuffling through them. "To be mannish undermines the very nature of ladies."

"Just so," Natasha murmured, feeling her spine itch in annoyance. "Perhaps if you tell me what to look for, I can assist you. I would hate to take you away from your important work."

That mollified the old woman enough to give her some of the enrollment and employment books; apparently, she had brought all of them to the desk instead of just the employment records that the dean had talked about.

There. Anna Markova, written in the neat, tidy hand that most of the girls of the Red Room employed. She was listed as a French teacher in the summer and fall of 1871, before resigning the post to become the governess for the Grimes family. The dean had remembered it wrong, but that was just fine. At least what had happened to her was written down, and Natasha could always track down the Grimes family.

This had to be magic. So rarely did information gathering yield so much in a single day.

Then again, this was also a much simpler time, and information was easy to dig through once she knew where to go to find it. Plus, the people around the courthouse were eager to talk about the Grimes family. Well, most of them seemed friendly and ready to talk about the city, its history, who was who and the "right" people that Natasha should get to know. Luckily for her search, the Grimes family fell under that category of "right" people.

Michael Grimes was a lawyer with an office at the Temple, a building one block south of the county courthouse, at the northwest corner of Fifth and Walnut Streets. It was a big office building, and there were large meeting rooms on the top floor, which were rented out for various conventions and uses in need of space. Grimes had been in practice for nearly ten years, and was fairly well respected in the community. He did business and real estate law, and businessmen tended to like him. He had been married to Gretchen for eight years, after a nearly three year courtship due to her poor health, and they had two daughters. Agnes was five years old and Emily had turned two three weeks before Natasha's arrival.

If Gretchen was that sickly, it would make sense for the Grimes family to have live in help in the form of Anna Markova. Natasha could imagine the name came to Anya the same way her own had come to her. It was similar enough to her own name that she could respond to it, though she was trained in ways to maintain deep cover. Anya had received the same training. Could she really be happy with taking care of little girls? She didn't think she could do it.

The Grimes family lived in a row house on Olive Street, near Washington University. It was part of the expansion of the city, with more churches and some stores in the neighborhood. To the west was a more rural landscape, though horse car lines along Grand Avenue was making travel easier into the area. The mansions of Vandeventner Place still had large tracts of land around them, and were relatively isolated from the growing city.

Natasha was duly impressed by the row house, as it was far more elegant than the University Club or the halfway house that the nuns had set her up in. This neighborhood was quieter and cleaner than downtown, with the hustle and bustle of business, industry and politics. It was very much an ideal place to raise little girls, and again made her wonder why in the world would Anya want to stay there. It wasn't the Red Room, but surely there were other places where she could have gone to ground?

Knocking on the door, Natasha almost expected a uniformed butler to open it. Instead, a young woman with blonde hair pulled into a braid down her back, green eyes and a round, open face looked back at her. She was dressed in a simple calico dress, lace at the collar and little golden hoops in her ears. It took Natasha just a moment to recognize her as Anya, though it was the same amount of time for Anya to recognize her as well.

She stuck her foot in the doorway and smiled sweetly even though Anya tried to slam the door shut. "Anna," she said, keeping the same flat accent that the locals had. "My dear cousin! I've traveled all this way to make sure you were all right."

Anya narrowed her eyes at Natasha. "Did you?" she asked coldly.

"My aunt—your mother— has died, my parents as well. I don't know where your stepfather is, but I know he has no idea where you are."

The older girl quickly caught the gist of Natasha's story. "And he sent you to find me, is that it?"

"That doesn't mean I would tell him."

"Why not?" Anya challenged. No, she should think of this as Anna now, because the girl was fully ensconced in her role as governess now.

"Perhaps you had the right idea of it, running away." She blew out a slow breath as Anna eased back from the doorway. "But this land is still unfamiliar to me. It could be that I may be of use to you. Or perhaps I need to be elsewhere."

Anna compressed her lips together tightly, contemplating Natasha. They both had the same training, and she could have been lying to the older girl. They both knew that.

Ultimately, it was Mr. Michael Grimes himself that took the decision out of Anna's hands. He came up to the foyer, newspaper in hand, dressed in his work trousers and shirt, suspenders keeping the trousers up. He had an impeccable and forthright look to him, with skin that was painfully pale from being indoors all day. That made his dark hair and eyes look even darker, and there were deep lines in his face on either side of his mouth. It could have been laugh or frown lines, but at the moment he was frowning at Natasha.

"Who's this?"

"My cousin," Anna began, making a faltering gesture with her hand.

"Natasha Roman," Natasha supplied helpfully, smiling. "I've only arrived in the area a few days ago myself. The coach had been attacked outside of the city."

"You hadn't said anything about a cousin," Michael said to Anna.

"I had said that home life had been... difficult."

Michael nodded at her, and looked from Anna to Natasha, waiting patiently for an explanation from them for Natasha's sudden appearance on his doorstep.

"Her mother died," Natasha said quietly, infusing her voice with grief. "And her horrible stepfather went missing. I don't think he knows where Anna went, but I couldn't bear the thought of him possibly tracking her down."

An understanding expression crossed Michael's face. "Well, then. You may come in. The girls are stirring from their nap," he said, directing the last part to Anna.

"Of course, sir," she replied, nodding. She gave Natasha a nod as well, and then slipped past Michael to get to the girls' room.

That left Michael hosting Natasha in the parlor, making small talk about St. Louis and where she had come from, which Natasha found easiest to lie and say New York City. All sorts of people lived there, and most of the films she had watched as a child had centered on there. Even if it didn't match up with Anna's lies exactly, saying they were cousins meant that they didn't necessarily grow up in the same household. She also found it interesting how closely he hung on her words, how engrossed he was in anything related to Anna.

"Is it proper to ask what your intentions toward my cousin are?" Natasha asked at one point.

Startled by that, Michael sputtered and shot to his feet. There was a sickly flush in his cheeks, and he looked about helplessly.

Anna returned with the children, who appeared sleepy and curious to see the redheaded Natasha in the parlor. "They wanted to see our guest," she explained.

The girls had dark hair like their father, and the same dark eyes. Their upturned noses had less of a patrician slant, and their cheekbones were higher. Both were likely features from the sickly Gretchen. They seemed to be short for their ages, though Natasha wasn't a good judge for the normal ranges of heights. Perhaps Gretchen was short. Agnes had an arm around one of Anna's legs as she stared at Natasha. Emily had her thumb in her mouth and a rag doll dangling in her other hand, but seemed less hesitant.

"They're lovely," Natasha said with a fond note to her voice. Michael relaxed a bit with that statement, but still was tense.

"Perhaps we should visit your mother," Anna suggested to the girls. "She should be done with her rest, and we can all have tea together."

Emily toddled forward, toward Natasha, looking up at her with big eyes. "Red," she said, thumb still in her mouth, pointing at her with the doll dangling from her hand.

Natasha smiled and approached, squatting down so that she was closer in height to the toddler. "Do you want to touch it?" she offered, pulling out a few of the pins that kept her bun in place on the top of her head. It was such a silly but common hairstyle that was considered proper in this time period, but the pins gave her a headache.

As her hair cascaded down past her shoulders in waves, the little girl grinned around her thumb, revealing a few crooked teeth growing in where her thumb seemed to be permanently parked in her mouth. With the doll still in hand, she reached out and touched the shining red hair. Natasha didn't even flinch when her fingers tangled in a few twisted locks of hair. She looked over at the older girl with an encouraging smile. "Did you want to see, too? I know red isn't a common color, but that's what I was born with."

With a gentle nudge from Anna, Agnes came closer. "It's wavy," she said, not quite touching it.

"There needs to be a lot of pins to keep it flat on my head. I don't like that much," she admitted when Agnes frowned.

"I don't either," she said, lips pulling down in the corners. "But Mama says I have to."

"And you must listen to your mama," Anna said in a gentle tone. "We have everything set up for tea, and there are little cookies."

"I wouldn't want to interfere with your schedule," Natasha said smoothly, untangling Emily's fingers from her hair. "I just wanted to be sure that you were well."

"I am," Anna replied quickly. "We have a nice routine here."

The door to the parlor opened, and a petite blonde woman with limpid blue eyes came in. Her clothing was exquisitely tailored, and she had delicate features that matched the girls'. She carried herself hesitantly, tentatively, as if she wasn't sure if she even belonged in the room, instead of being assured as mistress of the household. Interesting.

"We have a guest?" she asked, her voice a weak warble. "I knew something was different when you didn't come back for tea," she said, looking at Anna in curiosity.

Natasha again repeated her litany of lies, adding appropriately abashed smiles in places. Michael still watched her closely, as if he was nervous about something. Gretchen didn't seem to notice, and simply came closer and took Natasha by the arm. "Well, of course you care for your dear cousin. I would if I had any, too. You can stay for tea and visit. Michael, perhaps you can go to one of your clubs? In a house full of ladies and little girls, our conversation will no doubt be quite dull for you."

Ah, there was a bit of a backbone in the fragile woman after all. Natasha could appreciate hidden depths in women.

Though he obviously wasn't thrilled about leaving a stranger at home with the ladies, Michael did ultimately leave. They all settled in the dining room, the girls crumbling their cookies and sipping milk instead of tea. "I must say," Gretchen began gently, "that I'm glad Anna has family after all. And caring family."

"There were..." Natasha's eyes skipped over to the girls at the table. "Very not nice things that happened," she said finally. "I understand why Anna left and doesn't want to return."

"She'll always have a place here," Gretchen assured her with a firm nod. "Even if I am not, she will always be."

Putting down her teacup, she frowned at Gretchen. "What do you mean?"

Gretchen put down her teacup as well. "I am aware of my physical limitations." Her gaze skipped over to the girls, who were playing with the cookies more than eating them, chattering away with each other. Anna gently was reminding them to eat and drink so they could have energy to play in the afternoons. "I nearly died in the birthing of them, and I am held to be something of a failure in not giving Michael a son." She turned back to Natasha. "Should I pass on, I've already told Michael that he should marry Anna. She loves the girls as if they were her own blood. And I'm sure she'll love a third child as well."

Natasha gaped at her. "But—"

"I'm easily overlooked," Gretchen said quietly. "I heard what you asked Michael. He hasn't behaved in an untoward manner. He wouldn't, he's not that kind. But I want my children cared for when I die. I care for Michael, he's been very kind to me. But my children matter the most, and Anna is a wonderful caretaker for them. So you don't have to worry about your cousin, Natasha. She is well cared for now, and even in the event of my death."

She leaned back and contemplated the petite woman. "Thank you, then."

"Have you any plans for your own welfare?"

Natasha shook her head. "I have much to think about."

"I will allow you to stay here for a time, of course. So you can see for yourself that Anna will be safe here, and not simply take my word for it."

Giving Gretchen a wry look, Natasha shook her head. "I like to think of myself as a good judge of character. What your body lacks, your will more than makes up for."

Gretchen gave her a smile, likely the first genuine one in her direction. "We all have different strengths, Natasha. We do what we must to survive, to keep on breathing."

"You don't like your arrangement?" Natasha asked in surprise.

"It's as good as any I could have hoped for, but it wasn't my decision."

"I suppose few decisions are in a woman's hands in this day and age."

"Unless you're a Suffragette, in which case, there's always the struggle for more," Gretchen replied with a shrug. Miss Phoebe Couzins, I'm sure you've seen her name in the papers, has devoted herself to the cause rather than continue with her work as a lawyer. All that time in school, and she only kept her office near Michael's for two months!" She shook her head. "It is just as groundbreaking to be the first woman lawyer in our fair city, but no, she believes in her causes and thinks women should vote."

"What do you think?"

Gretchen looked at her girls again and heaved a sigh. "Whatever makes their lives easier than mine is what I would campaign for. I don't know if the vote will help them or harm them. I simply want the best for them."

"Then maybe making it so that they aren't dependent on men?" Natasha suggested.

"Difficult not to be," she replied with a sniff.

Though she wasn't sure this was a good move, Natasha leaned in close to Gretchen. "I lived out east and through very unsavory situations," she said, voice pitched low enough that Anna and the girls wouldn't hear her. "Perhaps we can help each other, then."

"How so?"

Natasha picked up the butter knife, testing its edge. Fairly dull, yet she could still make it useful if she needed to. "I would not boast of such things before authorities, but this can still be a weapon to defend your person." She tapped the sharp tip. "This helps."

Eyes wide in surprise, Gretchen leaned back. "There is much you haven't said."

"And by your lack of horror, I think there is much you haven't said, either."

Settling back in her seat, she looked back at her daughters. "Then perhaps we may start speaking of these things, and decide how best to proceed."

***  
***


	3. Decisions To Make

It was odd for Natasha, taking on the role of Madame Bolishinko without the inherent hatred of her students. Agnes and Emily saw it all as merely calisthenics and games, as they were meant to, but Gretchen immediately saw how the running and climbing and throwing could be turned into punches, kicks, and being able to run faster than any captor. Anna sighed and continued with their training during her outings, and it was all explained away to Michael as newfangled exercises that children were doing on the East Coast to maintain and increase strength. St. Louis wanted to be so cosmopolitan, after all, and the Grimes girls couldn't have anything less than East Coast citizens. Given how fragile Gretchen could be, Michael certainly wasn't going to stop any training that might strengthen the girls.

"You need to come up with a long term plan," Anna told Natasha in Russian late one evening. It had been almost a month since Natasha's arrival, and the redhead went very still at the quiet words. "You are not terrible," Anna added gently, "but they'll send more."

"If they haven't already," Natasha agreed with a sigh. "I was sent out after three months."

"I had the gem to guide me here. You had a magician." She smirked at Natasha and shook her head. "And I doubt any of the other girls they send after us would gain the magician's help. He is not so easy to manipulate."

Natasha thought of the burning pain behind her collarbone, the way back to her own time if she really wanted it. She wasn't sure if she did, not if it would simply send her back to the Red Room and their horrible mercies.

"You're thinking of something," Anna accused.

"Where's the gem?" Natasha asked abruptly. "I haven't found it in this house."

"It's not here."

"But where?" she asked, shaking her head. "You've had over a year in this time, and you wouldn't have had much opportunity to go far—" Her voice cut off as it occurred to her where Anna could have hidden it. "You have no intention to go back. And it would be too dangerous to keep it here with those people and the children."

Anna looked at her evenly, chin lifted. "I have what I want. Do you, Natalia?"

"They had to rebuild after that tornado tore up downtown when you arrived. It's in the foundations of City Hall, isn't it? The one they just rebuilt? Someday, it will still come to light," Natasha hissed. "Don't you think they'll find it then?"

"I'll be dead. I won't care."

"I can go back. I'm sure I could take you with me," Natasha said, lips curling into a snarl.

"Would you? Bring me back with you, where you don't want to be any longer?" There was no triumph in Anna's expression. "You don't want their feeble praise. You don't want their rules and constraints. You want the freedom in this time. For all the restrictions they have on women here, you can see the way through them, and the Red Room does not exist. For once in your life, you are truly and utterly free."

"Until the next girl shows up."

"You have a place in this household, in this city." Anna stretched her lips in a challenging and mirthless smile. "No need to claw and bite your way to survival. No need to watch for the hand that falls to strike you."

"Perhaps that will make me lose my edge. I need the fear to keep me sharp."

"Or go elsewhere. Even if the magician sends another girl, they weren't as clever as you. I doubt they could convince the magician that they truly wanted to escape, and didn't simply want to slit my throat." Anna leaned close and touched Natasha's shoulder, making her flinch. "You're still a woman, Natalia, as much as they tried to make a machine of you. Here, that woman is free, and you can be more than a nameless and faceless assassin. Here, you may live."

"And be what? Governess?" There was a bitter twist to Natasha's mouth. "If she dies with a third birth, you couldn't give him more children."

"I know," Anna replied calmly. "But these children would be mine. I raise them more than Gretchen does. She has her needlework and her volunteering for the Civil War groups, the salon of worthy topics of discussion in the city. She despises the maternal arts. I might not have the womb to carry a child any longer, but Madame B didn't excise my soul."

"Why would you _want_ to raise another's children?" Natasha asked, a moue of distaste on her lips. "Or even try to pretend they were yours?"

"Not all want or should be parents. I remember who I was before they took me." Her gaze landed on Natasha, sharp and painful. "I don't think you remember who you were."

"We were all children," Natasha scoffed.

"I excelled in classes," Anna said, folding her hands into her lap. "But the Madame was always so angry with me when I refused to let go of the past. I did what had to be done, but on my terms, not hers. You are the best in your class, Natalia, and you broke yourself to pieces when she asked you to. I watched as you became everything she ever wanted."

 _You are marble,_ Madame Bolishinko had praised her once.

"You say that like you think it's terrible," Natasha accused.

"I do," Anna said quietly. "I will not be what she wants me to be. I will not return to the Red Room. I will never go back to that time. I saw my opportunity and took it. If you won't do the same, I won't stop you. But don't you dare ruin the life I'm building here," she hissed, anger sparking in her eyes. All at once, Natasha could see the remnant of the version of Anya that everyone had to live up to in the Red Room.

"They know nothing of the real you," Natasha murmured.

"No, they do not. And they never will."

Natasha heard the implicit threat, and simply nodded. This was Anna's place, her world and her new family. It wasn't a place for Natasha.

But then, what would be her place?

***

Natasha had stayed with the Grimes family through the winter, not knowing where else to go. She didn't overtly or covertly threaten Anna's place there, and acted almost as something of a secretary for the household, running errands and tallying budgets. Michael soon enough actually trusted her to deliver papers to colleagues in the Temple, and used her as a secretary in the offices. That gave her a front row view to the third annual convention of the American Woman Suffrage Association on Nov. 21, 1872. She saw the historical figures that were present, including Phoebe Couzins, and personally didn't think much of the rhetoric used. Keeping themselves apart and somehow better than other disenfranchised and marginalized groups didn't really help their cause as much as they thought it did, and some of the personalities involved were quite abrasive.

Winter in St. Louis that year was cold, of dipping down to -17 °F or below in December 1872. It had even gone down to −23 °F on January 29, 1873, and was a drier, colder winter than usual that year. The usually muddy city wasn't as bad, though it was hard to avoid the wet and chill feeling in the air from the confluence of rivers.

Natasha couldn't shake the feeling that the unusual cold meant something. The horrific tornado of 1871 had heralded Anna's arrival, her own had been a stagecoach accident on a particularly hot day, and now it was frigidly cold. "This is colder than any I remember," Gretchen had said miserably as she sat by the fire in the parlor, wrapped in rugs and blankets over thick, fluffy sweaters. Anna had learned how to knit and crochet, and had been teaching Agnes how to make socks and shawls. Emily showed no interest yet, but she liked playing with the balls of yarn, batting it about the floor as if she was a cat. Michael clearly wanted to tell her to stop, but didn't have the heart to do so when Agnes yelling at her already made her want to cry or put her thumb back into her mouth.

"I need to go soon," Natasha told Anna later. She didn't look about the attic bedroom in a melodramatic manner, but the foreboding was worth paying attention to.

"I feel it too," Anna agreed with a sigh. "Should we say you're heading further west? That you want to strike out on your own in California?"

"I don't think Gretchen would want that," Natasha murmured. "She's grown fond of me."

"And you feel...?" Anna prompted.

"Not much of anything," Natasha replied with a shrug. "But I have no better offers, no profession I could discuss in polite company, and no other acquaintances in this time period."

Anna sighed, shaking her head. "You truly are Madame B's masterpiece," she said in a fairly disappointed tone. "Fine, then. Leave us."

"It's likely for your safety," Natasha snapped, irritated with Anna. "Who do you think they will send, Anya?" she asked, voice hard with anger. "Do you think it will be a little one? Maybe they'll send Yelena. She holds nothing sacred at all, not even the lives of all our sisters. Maybe it'll be Tatiana or Mariska. You don't know them, but they can be quite vicious."

"Stop," Anna ordered, her own voice hardening as well. "I know what will come. But they have no means to get here and no way to find me."

"I found you."

"Those little ones don't know me."

"I barely knew you and I found you."

She turned away, unable to refute Natasha's statement. "So someone is coming," she said finally.

"I think so, yes."

"I will kill her rather than go back. Or allow her to kill me."

"Or I convince her that you died and I go back," Natasha murmured.

Anna whirled about and looked at her in surprise. "You would do that for me?"

"Eight months, I have been here. You've done nothing but help me, try to find a place for me in this time. I'm not sure if there is a place for me, but you're still trying." Natasha let out a slow breath. "I think I have no place in the world. My skills, they're only good for one thing. And it's certainly not going to help with child care or teaching. You know all the languages I do, all the same skills I do. But you _care_ and you _love,_ all the things that made you want to leave them in the first place." She shrugged carelessly, but she was sure that Anna saw straight through her. "I'm not capable of those emotions. I didn't want to leave them because I care about something or someone. I just don't want them hurting me anymore."

"I think you do yourself a disservice," Anna sighed.

"I owe you a debt," Natasha told her stubbornly. "And the Grimes family."

"They don't see it as a debt."

"But I do."

"Gretchen thinks she might be pregnant again," Anna blurted into the intervening silence.

"If it kills her, you have your place assured," Natasha replied with a bland tone. "So it's even more important for me to make sure that they think you're dead. You can't go back to the Red Room. Those children need a mother."

Something changed in Anna's expression, which Natasha couldn't really recognize. Did she actually care about Natasha? Would she really care if Natasha was gone?

"I think it would hurt you more than you say," Anna whispered. "All you know is sacrifice and work and duty and owing someone. But life is more than that. _You_ are more than that. I don't want you to think of yourself as marble. Madame B was _wrong."_

"And if she wasn't?" Natasha asked evenly.

Anna came over to Natasha and pulled her into a tight embrace. "She was wrong. She was. If she was so right, why would there be handlers in charge of _her?_ Why would she be able to be dismissed from offices? No, she's not as powerful as she says she is."

Stiff in her arms, Natasha processed the words. "You want her to be wrong. Because if she's wrong about me, she's wrong about you. And then you truly can love. Or maybe they didn't actually do the graduation ceremony—"

"They did. Of course they did. You know how they like to be thorough." She tightened her grip on Natasha when the redhead wanted to pull away. "But that doesn't hurt me any longer, if you thought that would. I've come to terms with it. And there are more ways to love or to be a mother than to simply give birth to a child. There are more ways to be human than to be like those mindless sheep in the city."

"I'm a killer. I can't keep pretending that I don't know how to do it."

"Then don't. I'm sure there are ways to use those skills now if you absolutely must. A bounty hunter or state Marshall, _something._ If that's all you see of yourself, then do that."

"You think I'm _good,"_ Natasha accused.

"I think you can be. If you wanted to be. If it mattered enough to you," Anna said sadly, pulling away from her at last. "If you had a cause to fight for. Debts aren't enough. Duty isn't enough. You have to know what you want."

Agitated, Natasha began to pace the length of her room. "I don't."

"Then find the girl they sent, convince her to stay or send her on her way. But you need to choose what you want with your life. Not Madame B, not Comrade Bezukov, not any of those old bastards that are too afraid to fight for themselves."

"If only you hadn't buried the gem in the foundations of Town Hall when you arrived," Natasha said bitterly. "They would take me back in an instant if I had that."

Anna heaved a sigh and then walked to the bedroom door. "If you go back and stay there, you truly will be nothing more than marble. Incredibly strong until there's too much pressure. At that point, you'll shatter and be useless. You can't be a pretty ornament if you're in pieces. That's all they'll do to you, Natalia. They'll break you. No one is unbreakable."

"I am," Natasha replied, lifting her chin defiantly.

"No one is," Anna corrected. "Maybe you say these things to me because you believe it. Maybe you only wish you did. But it isn't true, no matter how often you say it is. Flesh is strong, but the will is stronger. You can return at any time, but you've stayed here with me this long. It's because you don't want to go back. You don't want to be there." She opened the door, but paused before walking through it. "Natasha, you can be whoever you want. Choose wisely."

She was trying, but she didn't know what that would be.

***

It wasn't a girl.

Natasha went through downtown St. Louis and walked all over the outskirts and into the wilderness beyond the carriage lines to look for the girl sent in by the Red Room. The extreme cold had to be a signal of some kind; the displaced magic and time had to go somewhere, after all. If Dr. Strange wasn't going to help other Red Room girls, then they would have had to have found others not as skilled. So of course there would be a bigger recoil in sending someone backward through time.

Everywhere she looked, though, she didn't see signs of the girl. She had to have been somewhere in the outskirts of the city, just as Natasha had been, but instead, Natasha looked as though she was a loiterer and skiving off the work for the Grimes'.

She did find the tread of modern boot prints on the edge of the farm that George worked at. The sight of it chilled her to the bone; even store bought shoes and boots didn't have the same kind of tread that military grade boots would make. It was a fairly large size, so it certainly wasn't one of the Red Room girls that had been sent back.

And even worse, it was clearly deliberately placed.

Quickly walking back from the farm to the Grimes house, Natasha thought furiously. She was meant to find that set of boot prints; there were no others leading up to them or away from them, as if he simply jumped into that spot and then moved quickly to get out of the way. If they belonged to the man she thought they did, however, she and Anna were in serious trouble. A little girl could be reasoned with. The Asset could not be.

The Winter Soldier was relentless, strong, and inherently bound to his handlers. Whispers told of trigger phrases, conditioning so deep that he didn't realize it had even been done, and that there were special stasis chambers to keep him in peak physical condition between his missions. The girls were expendable; there were plenty more orphans to train, and no one ever looked twice at little girls in rows of beds, twin pigtails down their backs. But the Asset was important, the only one of his kind, and sent on missions where the outcome was necessary and the casualties that inevitably came were a risk that administrators were willing to take.

He was deadly and accurate, and had a hand in training the better girls of the Red Room in hand to hand combat. With his flawless accents, he had also served in simulations run to test the girls' ability to blend into domestic scenarios and look as though they were American or from various European countries. The Winter Soldier hit hard, fought even harder, and tended to be armed to the teeth. His handlers had always believed in equipping him with as much gear as could be strapped to his body. In addition to the myriad tactical knives, Natasha recalled that he had also carried at least two Akdal Ghost TR-01 semiautomatic 9 mm pistols, two Taurus PT-940 pisols, a Vektor Mini SS light machine gun, a Vektor R6 assault rifle, and maybe three or four grenades in pockets on his bandolier. She had been trained with those weapons, as well as Kalishnikov and Markarov pistols and rifles.

 _He_ had trained her.

The house was empty when she returned. As much as it was a blessing of sorts, as she wouldn't have to explain her worry and agitation, the emptiness also mocked her. what if the Winter Soldier was tracking them all down?

Anna and the girls were walking through the park, and Gretchen was visiting with her doctor to ensure that she was healthy. She was wretchedly tired and nauseous all the time, with soreness in her lower back and breasts. Michael's eyes may have strayed a bit toward Anna at times, but he never acted in a way that implied he was visiting her room after hours while Gretchen slept. He also never looked at Natasha with anything other than respect for a family member. None of them would be the Winter Soldier's mission. He was likely after the gem, and would stop at nothing until he got it. Which meant that the entire Grimes family was at risk.

Natasha sat on the narrow bed in her upstairs room, staring at the floor without really seeing it. While she didn't feel as though she really had a place in 1873 St. Louis, Anna certainly did, and the Grimes family certainly did. Anna loved those girls as if they were her own, and would undoubtedly love the third child that Gretchen was carrying. Even if Gretchen survived, Anna would always be a part of the family.

Something like jealousy squeezed around Natasha's embittered heart. She didn't have that same feeling, didn't belong with these people in this time the way that Anna did. Even though the girls had grown used to her, called her Auntie Nat or Auntie Tasha, it wasn't the same thing. Natasha refused to think of fondness she had for the girls, the delight in showing them how to track animals in the yard or how to climb the trees outside of the city. It was playacting, that was all. It wasn't her place the way it was Anna's. Maybe she was meant to go back in time. The gem likely called to her, wanting to be found, wanting to be buried where no one would find it.

So where did that leave Natasha? She had this skill set that would horrify the genteel population of St. Louis, no matter what time period she was in. There was really only one side of the law that she knew how to work on, and this stint at refined legitimacy plagued her. She was restless, feeling as though she wasn't quite meeting her potential. Her trainers in the Red Room would be horrified at the way she was squandering her gifts. She wasn't ordinary, so why should she pretend to be?

Fear kept her instincts sharp, and she worked better with it guiding her reflexes. The past several months hasn't triggered enough fear. There hadn't been enough to keep her engaged and feeling as though she kept up with her training.

This was a home, but this wasn't her home.

Anna had kept urging her to make a decision. Natasha had been putting it off for far too long.

Natasha pushed herself up off the bed abruptly and packed a carpet bag with some of the belongings she had acquired during her stay. She paused when she saw one of the drawings that Agnes had made of all of them. Surely that would be safe enough to keep, with none of their names on it. She carefully folded that up and slipped it between one of the packed skirts. The family wouldn't understand, so she would have to leave a letter.

As soon as it was written, Natasha left the house in search for the Winter Soldier. She had to keep the Grimes family safe, and lead him as far away as possible.

She owed Anna a debt. And maybe loved her and those children.

***  
***


	4. Stop Bleeding

Natasha stared at the Winter Soldier, knowing that he had wanted her to find him. There was no other reason for it to be so easy to track him down. If he didn't want to be found, he wouldn't be found; he was a ghost in the intelligence community for just that reason. As big as he was, he could move silently and be unseen if that was his mission. Usually, however, he wasn't meant to blend in and hide. He was meant to menace and threaten, to shoot and kill with impunity, to send the message that the Red Room and Department X were the ones in control.

She was only too aware of it, and knew that there would be no saving herself. Sometimes, there had to be a sacrifice. Sometimes, the hard call had to be made.

This was one of those times.

"Comrade," she said quietly, inclining her head respectfully. The carpet bag with her belongings had a strap sewn onto it that was long enough she could wear it as a cross body bag, leaving her hands free. Still, she hoped it wouldn't come down to a fight between the two of them. She could probably fight dirty enough to defeat him, but she didn't delude herself into thinking she could keep him down permanently. "I suppose I should be flattered. I had not thought I was important enough to warrant you coming to retrieve me."

"Had you defected?" he asked, voice even. "Seven girls sent in after you, and none of them returned, either."

Blinking at him in genuine confusion, Natasha's lips parted. "What?"

"Had you defected?" he repeated, insistent.

"No," she replied, shaking her head. And that was sort of true, given that she hadn't planned on it when Dr. Strange had found her. "There was a man in the mountains—"

"I'm aware," the Asset said, his voice harsh and pitiless. "Apparently, he sent all of the girls away from the mountains and didn't want to be found. But setting fire to a few villages drew him out. He was willing to talk then."

Her gut tightened when she thought of the grandmother and the boy that was her guide. Had they survived the fires? Was their village even one of the ones torched? And why should she care about strangers whose names she hadn't even bothered to learn?

But it mattered. It always mattered. She had learned that here.

"So you found the old man," Natasha said without inflection.

"Not so old," he corrected, "but yes, I did. He sent me here with some convincing."

"And a way back?" she asked in arch tones.

Now the Winter Soldier faltered. "When I complete my mission—"

"You didn't make sure," she countered, feeling something almost like hope flare in her gut. It was nonsensical, but if the Winter Soldier couldn't return and she convinced him of Anna's death, then she could leave him trapped in the past. She wouldn't have to worry about him reprimanding or killing her. She'd seen how devastating the bodies in his wake could be.

The flash of confusion in his eyes made him seem human after all, and that made her doubt leaving him behind. If he was human enough for emotions, then he could possibly trick the stupid people of the city into leading him to Anna and the Grimes family. They wouldn't be safe, not if his programming was still intact.

Hands loose and open to view, Natasha took a step forward. "Anya is dead," she said. "I haven't seen any of the other girls sent after me. I thought I was stuck here, and I don't belong in this place and time. I don't fit."

"You have no place in the world," the Winter Soldier replied, sounding as though he was merely echoing what he had heard others say. It still pained her to hear it.

"I know," she said quietly. "The item that the Red Room wanted is gone. Maybe it never existed in the first place," she lied. "Maybe it was all stories and the old man simply didn't want us bothering him anymore. I couldn't resist his magic. I have no training for that."

"It's not believed to be real." There was that confusion in his eyes again, that flicker of humanity that made him seem less robotic.

"We know better now, don't we?"

His head snapped up. "I have orders," he said, voice sharp. It was a command, likely a response to a set of trigger words.

"So do I," she told him quietly, not moving.

The harsh stance softened a bit. "They did not plan for this."

"They likely didn't know this was coming." She chanced a step forward. "We've trained together, you and I. You taught me hand to hand and weapons." In light of the uncertainty in his gaze, she stayed still and kept her hands empty and loose. "I refuse to believe they thought us disposable, when you are one of their greatest weapons. Maybe I am, but you certainly are not."

"You're not disposable," he ground out, the anger in his eyes now clearly not at her. "People matter. They have to."

She had just started to believe that herself. What kind of man had he been before he had become the Asset? Likely a very good one.

"Do you know what they wanted?" she asked quietly after the moment stretched out, long and uncomfortable even for her.

"The return of their agents and the gem."

"I haven't seen any others, and Anya is dead."

"How?" he demanded, looking at her curiously.

"The trip. It changed her somehow, made it so she couldn't survive," Natasha explained. Her voice rang with the certainty of truth. The words were vague but absolutely true, after all. What better way to lie than to twist the truth? "Anya was dead before I even got here. She can't come back, no matter how much they would wish it."

There was a slump in his shoulders, slight but still present. Oh, yes, he had been a good man once, before Department X got hold of him. He might not remember his past, he might be wiped clean by his handlers, but the body remembered. The Winter Soldier was ignorant of his own origins, but it still bled through. It was probably why he had to be wiped at all. He still had a soul, just as Natasha had discovered she had one as well. She wasn't made of marble as Madame Bolishinko liked to say, wasn't as callous as she wanted to think herself.

That was a truth that had to remain hidden if she wanted to stay alive and breathing.

"So we're trapped."

Natasha carefully stepped closer. "There was no way out given to you? No return path?" As he shook his head, she continued her approach. "Unless it was only to be triggered once you found one of us. You can't return alone."

"The old man would have said something about that, surely."

She could hear the thread of doubt in his voice, the flicker of uncertainty in his otherwise dead gaze. Something in her was thrilled that she was this close to the Winter Soldier outside of a training session. He was magnificent, well honed and obviously skilled and brilliant. For a moment, just a moment, she wondered what he would feel like under her hands, if the metal arm would be cold to her touch.

Without realizing it, she reached out and grasped his hands, both flesh and metal. It startled them both, and she could feel the chill of the metal. It warmed under her touch, and she found herself smiling up into his wary expression. "I believe we have a purpose, Comrade," she said, voice soft and sure. "We have a mission to complete."

He made an uncertain noise in his throat; he hadn't been given other orders, wasn't used to thinking outside the parameters of the explicit instructions. He was a soldier, not a spy, not the assassin trained to be anyone and anything.

A Black Widow could be anyone she wanted, but the Winter Soldier was only a soldier.

Natasha tightened her grip on his hands fractionally. "We work better together. I think this is the way we get to go home." She thought of the spell that Dr. Strange had placed inside her body, just behind her collarbone. It would bring her back to her present, to the time he had found her and paused everything to send her back to find Anya. Closing her eyes, she thought about the searing pain that the spell had caused, trying to feel for its presence.

 _There._ Like a scar, a tightness in her muscles.

As she opened her eyes, the tightness eased and she could feel a wind begin to pick up around the two of them. She smiled at his surprised expression. "Don't let go, Comrade. I don't want to be left behind."

A lie, but a necessary one.

The Winter Soldier absolutely believed it, because he loosened his flesh hand from hers and then wrapped that arm around her, pulling her close before she could even protest his letting go. She could feel every weapon he had strapped to his body, as well as the boning in her corset and the strap of her carpet bag.

Wind spun around them, howling as if angry, and she could feel the sharp chill around them change. The scent in the air was subtly different, less damp and muddy, more like packed dirt and scrub plants. The Winter Soldier's head jerked, and Natasha guessed that he picked up the change in the scent as well. She tightened her grip on his metal hand and hooked her other arm through one of the loops holding his semiautomatic rifle in place. It was a move that shocked him, almost as much as when she buried her face against his chest, shielding her eyes from the wind as it whirled ever faster. After the initial shock, his arm tightened around her torso. His metal hand twisted loose from hers, but he didn't push her away. Instead, he curled that arm around her as well, the metal hand cradling the base of her skull in a protective fashion.

Breathing in the scent of him, Natasha thought of Anna and the girls, of Gretchen and Michael, the innocent people of St. Louis. She couldn't breathe, couldn't make her chest move. It felt as if she had stabbed herself in the chest, as if she was bleeding out.

Natasha was sacrificing herself for them all, and it _hurt._

Once the wind died down and the Winter Soldier loosened his grip on her, Natasha raised her head and looked around. As she thought it would be, it was the Himalayan mountains where she had first seen Dr. Strange. And in fact, there he was in his robes and thick winter clothing, standing not that far away from the both of them. His expression was grave, sadness in his eyes as he took in the sight of Natasha in her 1873 clothing.

"You didn't stay," he murmured. "You should have stayed."

Her gaze flicked up to the Winter Soldier, but he was frozen in place. She licked her lips nervously, then back at Dr. Strange. "I couldn't. Not with him sent back."

"You didn't have to come _here,"_ Dr. Strange replied. "You could have gone anywhere else in the world. Any other time."

"Not if I wanted Anna to live the life she was meant to," Natasha said softly. No, she had to be Natalia again. Natasha had to be dead now.

Dr. Strange seemed to understand that, and he nodded slowly. "You'll find your own way out of this someday. I see that in you."

It still felt as if she had stabbed herself in the chest, and his words seemed to twist the knife. She blinked back tears before they could even form, her old training sliding back into place with no difficulty whatsoever. It should have frightened her, but it felt right. Natalia was the best of the Black Widows remaining. Seven other girls gone, disappeared into the ether.

"I'm no hero," she whispered.

His smile was fond and sad as he shook his head. "There are all kinds of heroes, little one."

Her gut twisted at that, making her think of the Grimes girls, the way they curled in front of the fireplace of the house, the sweet smiles directed toward her. _Aunt Nat,_ Agnes said, pushing a book at her. _Can we go see the stars?_

"You'll find your place," Dr. Strange assured her. "Right now, though, it's not the time for cost counting. Later, when you have time, you can tally it all up."

What an odd thing to say. She still couldn't breathe because of the tightness in her chest, but before she could ask anything else, the Winter Soldier behind her moved. "You!" he said in an accusing tone, lifting a gun from a holster.

"Hold," Dr. Strange said, lifting a hand. "You got what you came for. You'll find even more in the future if you stray past your directives. I promise you, you'll find all that you seek."

And then he was gone in the blink of an eye.

"What?" Natalia asked, stunned.

"We must return," the Winter Soldier said in gruff tones. Still, she could hear a thread of disconcerted agitation there as well. He didn't like magic.

Then again, she didn't think that she did, either.

***

Of course there was the debriefing and the intense grilling that came with a completed mission, especially a failed one. Natalia locked away Anna's secrets deep inside of herself, where the spell had been buried behind her collarbones. It brought an odd ache when she allowed herself to think of it, but it no longer felt like she was stabbing at the spot. Maybe it was like scar tissue, a tighter spot that could be a weakness if anyone knew it existed, but she guarded its existence carefully, making sure no one in the Red Room would ever doubt her. Madame Bolishinko glowered at her, but Natalia kept her expression blank, mind empty, and parroted back the discussion about being like marble, about completing her duty.

The nameless man that had cowed Madame Bolishinko didn't call for her, and Natalia continued to be under her command. She wasn't punished terribly, given the failure of her mission, but seven other girls had wholly disappeared. Magic was involved. She couldn't be faulted for being unable to combat magic when she wasn't trained for it.

"You should have been able to disable a single man," Madame Bolishinko sniffed disdainfully at her, frowning a little. "Even if there had been magic."

"I have learned my lesson," Natalia promised.

"You require further training," Madame Bolishinko continued, as if she hadn't spoken. "If our best students are not yet good enough, we need to redesign the curriculum."

Rage burned in her gut, hot and fierce, obscuring the thread of fear along her spine. Natalia had done _everything_ they asked of her, everything, and had given up her chance to escape them all for good. Ungrateful bastards. They would pay somehow, she would see to it. They would have to feel the rage for themselves.

In the meantime, she followed directions, and found herself back in the library. Scouring the connection sources, Natalia managed to hack her way through the firewalls and then past the Red Room security protocols. She delved into the St. Louis online archives, looking for genealogies that had been digitized in the city.

Gretchen Grimes had indeed died soon after the birth of her third child, just as she had thought that she would. The official cause of death was listed as puerperal fever, three days after a son was born. Jeremiah Henry Grimes had been named and baptized on his second day of life, likely while Gretchen was still somewhat aware of him. Many children died in those days, after all, especially if they were touched by fever. This boy didn't die, likely because Michael Grimes married Anna five months later. It was still likely seen as disrespectful to Gretchen's memory, but there were even mentions of the Grimes family at a city dedication for Forest Park. Clicking on the newspaper article, Natalia looked at the small family, breath catching in her throat. There were the girls, prim and proper beside the pram. Anna had her hand on it, and there was a subtle way her other hand curled around her stomach, as if protecting it. She gazed directly into the photograph, as if she knew that Natalia would look for her.

The pain behind her collarbone was sharp and painful, and she dug into the archives looking specifically for Anna's name again. It was impossible, she had gone through the graduation ceremony, there was no way for her to have gotten pregnant. But there was her name listed in 1876 as giving birth at home to a small boy named Edward Stephen Grimes. Scanning other records, it was her only child, and she died in 1901 from a fever.

Maybe she had pretended that it was her child, and had stuffed her dress. Michael would have had to go along with such a ruse, if he was willing to do so. Had he a mistress after all, and Anna agreed to give it legitimacy? That seemed like something that she would do.

Natalia touched her fingers to the screen, tracing the 1901 death certificate. _You got what you wanted, Anna,_ she thought to herself. It felt like she was opening a wound deep inside of herself. _You were right, you weren't a machine. You were more than what they made you, more than what they said we were all capable of being._

Which meant she could be, too.

Backing out of the archives and wiping all traces of her entry into the databases, Natalia put the firewalls back in place, making it look as if she had never been there.

There was training in her future, and the Winter Soldier was going to help her complete it.

And just maybe, he could also help her break free of this place. Sooner or later, she was going to get out, and she would destroy it from the inside out if she could. Once she was out of its reach, she could figure out what her place in the world would be, what she was meant to do. If she could burn it down to the ground, she would be free. She would be able to breathe, tell her own lies, tell her own truths.

It was all a matter of time.

The End


End file.
